Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Beware of Guacammus!

My daughter and I made this recipe a few weeks ago. After we made it my daughter said, "Mom you need to blog about this.... to warn everyone!" I had to laugh. She was absolutely right. When I came across this recipe I thought it sounded delicious. We love guacamole. We love hummus. What a great idea! NOT!

I bought the ingredients and thought we'll make it and take it to a friend get together of my daughter's that I was also invited to. As we started to make this I told my daughter that really one should never try a new recipe when going to someone else's house. I said it tongue in cheek as I had full confidence this would be good.

Recipe for Guacamole Hummus

(my life saving additions in parenthesis)

1 can chickpeas

3 cups fresh cilantro (3 more cups of cilantro)

1 garlic clove (1 more clove of garlic)

1 ripe avocado (1 more avocado)

3 T extra virgin olive oil (2 more T of olive oil

1 tsp fresh lemon juice (juice of one whole lemon and one whole lime)

water

salt and pepper to taste (lots of salt, pepper and some cumin)

I made the recipe just as it said to do with the ingredients asked for. My daughter took the first taste. She said, "Mom, you need to taste this some thing's wrong." I told her sometimes recipes need a little tweaking to account for personal tastes. I took a taste and was alarmed by how terrible it was. LOL Oh my we're on "emergency fix it" mode now. We can't take this bowl of ... of.... gluck to a party! Yet, I didn't want to waste all these ingredients and throw them away.

First thought was it desperately need a perk up. It was very bland. The recipe called for 1 tsp of lemon juice I added the rest of the lemon I had juiced. Adding about 2 T of lemon juice. Tasted dip and it was still bland. No more lemons. I had a lime juiced it and added the whole thing. This improved the taste quite a bit. I threw the rest of the bundle of cilantro in. I added quite a bit more salt and pepper and even some cumin. We both tasted the dip and thought it tastes pretty good now, but the texture is kind of unpleasant. Not the texture of guacamole and not the texture of hummus something in the middle that wasn't good. I suggested we add another avocado to lighten up the texture. The addition of another avocado did improve the texture. We were now at the stage I wouldn't be embarrassed to take it to a party.

Since this was a party of mostly teenagers it didn't go over well. The 3 adults found it OK. Would I make it again? No. I had to add so much to make it acceptable I'd rather try something else next time. We started referring to it as Guacammus. We thought it was as appetizing as it's name.